WASHINGTON — A federal bill on Native Hawaiian recognition encountered a minefield in the U.S. Senate yesterday, with as many as six Republican senators secretly using their power and influence to stop the bill from coming to the floor for a debate.

The sudden roadblocks, as Hawai'i senators thought they were making progress, means the bill will likely not reach the floor this week and raises doubt about whether it can be heard before the Senate recesses next week.

Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawai'i, said he was prepared to force a vote if Republican leaders did not follow through with a commitment made last year to schedule a debate and vote by August.

The procedure, known as cloture, would trigger 30 hours of Senate debate, essentially halting other business. Sixty votes are required to get cloture and free the bill to the floor for consideration.

Inouye said he does not want to be an obstructionist but expects Republican leaders to honor their commitment. "Without that sort of relationship, then you'll have hell on earth here."

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who told Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, yesterday that the bill would not be moving, said he and other Republicans question its scope and want to carefully review its implications.

"I think we need to slow this thing down and talk about it," Sessions said. "The whole creation of a government that excludes people based on race or ethnicity is a fundamental matter that we all ought to be careful about."

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who is expected to lead the fight against the bill if it reaches the floor, described it in a letter to a Republican colleague as "troubling legislation that deserves far more scrutiny than it has thus far received."

Republicans have raised several issues over the past few days, including whether Native Hawaiians might eventually want to legalize gambling and whether they would file financial claims against the United States. But many of the objections appear to spring from a fundamental philosophical opposition to recognizing Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people with a right to form their own government.

"There are some who are just opposed because they don't believe that we should designate some as Native Americans and others as Americans," Inouye said. "You hear that argument sometimes in Hawai'i."

Some Republicans have cited concerns about expanding sovereignty to Hawaiians given past conflicts between federal and state governments and Indian tribes. Akaka, who part is Hawaiian, said he was stung when one Republican told him the bill was "not the right thing for the Hawaiians."

"I resented that," he said. "And I take it that that feeling is there because they really don't know the Hawaiians as I do or we do. And I wish up to this point that they would have a better feeling of what the Hawaiians really are."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., had mentioned the recognition bill on the Senate floor Tuesday as one the Senate should consider before the recess.

Akaka had been speaking with two Republican senators who he believed were holding up the bill, but then learned yesterday that as many as four other Republicans were using the same tactics.

Senators, by tradition, can anonymously hold bills if they have objections. Holds are not officially part of the Senate's rules but are typically honored by leadership. Holds have prevented the bill from advancing in the Senate since it was first introduced by Akaka and the state's congressional delegation in 2000.

Gov. Linda Lingle, state Attorney General Mark Bennett and trustees from the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs have been meeting with lawmakers and Bush administration officials over the past few days.

Akaka and Inouye both said they believed they were close to reaching agreement on changes to the bill recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice, which had raised some of the same issues as Republican senators.

Sessions, who said he met with Lingle this week, said Republicans would want time to look at revisions to the bill. The Hawai'i senators said they would continue to work with Republicans on possible amendments but were not going to accept what they view as unreasonable changes.

One Republican proposal would prohibit a Native Hawaiian government from ever allowing gambling, even if the state of Hawai'i one day legalizes gambling. Hawai'i is one of two states — Utah is the other — that bar gambling, and the bill has language that would prevent a Hawaiian government from pursuing gambling through the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

"I felt it was really out of line to suggest that something should never change," said Akaka, who, like Inouye, has opposed gambling in Hawai'i.

U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nevada, who has confirmed he placed a hold on the bill, has cited gambling as his main concern. Another Republican senator apparently wants assurances the Senate would vote on a resolution apologizing for the U.S. government's treatment of American Indians.

In Hawai'i, opponents of the bill applauded the moves and see any delay as an opportunity to convince more people of its pitfalls.

"There is a lot of opposition," said Andre Perez, coordinator for Hui Pu, an umbrella group for Native Hawaiians against the bill. The group has collected 1,000 names for a declaration condemning the bill for not representing all Native Hawaiians.

Thurston Twigg-Smith, a former publisher of The Advertiser who supports Aloha for All, which has fought the bill as racial separation and unconstitutional, said a delay gives the opposition more time to mobilize.

"It gives everybody a little more time to really think about the bill," he said.

But Micah Kane, the chairman of the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, dismissed the notion that a delay would hurt the bill's chances. "It's clarifying as opposed to stopping," he said.

"I don't believe, at least based on my discussions with the governor and the attorney general's office, that there is an issue we can't overcome."

Akaka said he believes the bill has enough support to pass with a majority vote in the 100-member chamber, and Inouye said he thought he could get the 60 votes necessary for cloture.